The Seeds of Something Beautiful
by Tenda
Summary: Attrition in Threed takes its toll on Ness, and a persistent notion of fear comes to fruition as an assassininwaiting makes her move.


**THE SEEDS OF SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL**

The flickers of energy that hang dangling wax panoramic, turn slow-boiling from confetti to fingers of eclectic fire that come together, burn together, form a common wick of the air between Ness Lanley and the lump of a once-man steadily approaching.

In an instant, flesh and bone give way to the technicolor stream pouring from Ness's mind and the lurching form fades away, settling back into the dust of the earth. Exhausted, Ness drops to his knees and he is woozy, he is swaying side to side, but Paula is there beside him and Paula has a hand on his shoulder, "Good job Ness, keep up the good work, Ness."

Again and again the dream cannon's report is heard as a staggering Ness comes face-to-face with abominations of walking undeath and Paula is tugging on Ness's sleeve, is holding her teddy bear, is begging Ness to keep at it.

You fight one, you fight two. You kill them both. You burn the corpses, you burn the ashes, you mix them with holy water and you bury them. Three more show up in the morning. Fighting in Threed is fighting a losing battle, is learning the meaning of attrition, is understanding there are fights that cannot be won.

But Paula pleads with Ness, fight on. We can't leave Threed because Threed is doomed without us. Fight on!

Fight on, my angel! Fight on, my hero!

The days in Threed are blurry, are washes of washed-out color stretched thin on pale canvas. Ness empathizes with the dreary universe, plugs himself into the cosmic leyline that generates the apathy and angst that runs streaking through the town. Ness wakes up on mornings that look like evenings and is dragged into the streets by Paula to do his part to contribute to a battle without conclusion.

How many days? They blur, like the flickering sparks of the dream cannon, everything in Threed blurs. Ness wakes up, Ness fights, and Ness sleeps. And Ness dreams.

Paula taught Ness it was a side-effect of being so dedicated to blasting zombies with his mind, taught him it was a natural repercussion he was going to have to live with.

But Ness hates it. Ness lying in bed is a mess, is a shamble of shivers and fevers, he's always sweating-- sometimes cold sometimes hot-- he turns and he twists and he tries to shake the demons that hound him through his mind but there's nothing.

So the cycle repeats, it replays and rebegins. Ness can feel it wearing on him as the days go by, and he's getting more and more tired every time, and the tasks he's faced with get harder and harder. The zombies are always there, the opposition is always present at the same systematic point. The entire affair seems preprogrammed, preordained, there is a calm and definitive pattern to the ritualistic daily murder of zombiekind by Ness Lanley.

And Paula is always there, one thumb in her mouth, save me Ness, help me Ness, you've got to fight, Ness. And Paula is always there to tell Ness he's done enough for one day, and to walk him back to the hotel, and Paula the martyr sits at Ness's bedside every night instead of getting sleep of her own, sits at the tiny chair by the table where Ness's old bat sits out of commission. "I don't know how you put up with me," a beleaguered Ness squeaks out, with the weight of the city on his shoulders, "I don't know how you still stand by my side."

Paula sits there every night with a butcher's knife, she's left the frying pan behind, and Paula watches sleeping Ness with the intent to keep him safe should anything burst through that door in the middle of the night and threaten Threed's only hope for survival.

This is the professed intent.

Ness's dreams aren't unfamiliar, he's had these kinds of visions before, he's dealt with the begging and pleading of telepathy before. He heard Paula's voice running through the halls of his mind before he ever left home, and receiving the same sort of communication now isn't entirely foreign.

Not entirely foreign but totally unexpected. Ness wakes up in the morning and relays to Paula how terrible his nightmares are. "I'm being followed," Ness manages to say through his anemic breathing, "there's someone chasing me and I'm afraid I'm going to be killed. Someone is trying to kill me."

You're so silly, Ness, Paula says. She tells him to grow up, to get over his nightmares, and corrals him out of the hotel bedroom and into the streets and the graveyards and the circus tent to fight the ghosts and zombies again.

And this time, it just so happens to be the last time.

This is the sound of unparalleled descent, Ness Lanley knows, as the palette of Threed changes in a sweep of the sky from its original state of darkness to the iridescent colors of the dream cannon. Ness's body is healed instantly, he's filled with a resurgence of strength and he's standing all alone now in the bright and metallic paradise of his mind, naked and silent.

Ness recognizes the place in an instant, this is the world he sees in his dreams, this is the place he's heard whispers about in the darkness of his heart; this is Magicant, and this is the city that the dream cannon built.

"What's happened to me?" Ness calls out into the darkness, and floating back in an instant is the same voice that's been haunting his dreams ever since he arrived at Threed.

"You pushed yourself a little too hard, Ness," and the voice is familiar, Ness can recognize it but he doesn't know from where. Ness is running now, sprinting through Magicant, swinging open doors and finding empty houses and empty parks and empty streets. "It's okay though, they carried you inside, they put you back on the bed, and Paula will watch over you," the voice reassures Ness.

Ness just keeps running, and there's no exhaustion to be found in Magicant. The clouds in the sky swirl and boil with all the colors of the rainbow, and Ness is running on a road that doesn't seem to end, but it's getting darker, and on the wind he's racing towards he can barely make out the smell of the ocean.

"How do I get back? I didn't mean to do this to myself, I have to keep fighting, or else Threed is doomed. Bring me back, take me back! I can't leave Paula behind in Threed! She needs me!" an exasperated Ness screams and stops abruptly when the footing gives way beneath him and he plunges into a sea of black and brackish water. "How do I get back?" Ness sputters out and continues to swim towards the wind, intent on getting out, getting somewhere, getting anywhere.

"This place is under construction, it's too soon for you to be here," the voice begins to explain, cool and calm and collected. "I can't tell you how to get out. You need to find your own way out, but don't worry. No rush. Paula will take care of you."

At the center of the ocean, there is an island where the air stands still and standing on this nightmare rock Ness can see for miles in every direction and this is where Ness spots it. Some distance away, there is an idol; there is a golden statue at the heart of Magicant, and Ness can make it out just past the horizon, and it's blinking in and out of existence, slowly getting closer, and Ness doesn't know what to make of it.

He recognizes it, though. He would recognize this statue anywhere: Mani Mani.

Ness standing on the isle in the heart of the ocean can feel danger approaching, can feel that this is a bad place, that bad things are happening, but Ness Lanley is helpless. It's cold now, and he's shivering, he's naked and the voice has disappeared and Ness feels all alone inside himself. He is without accompaniment, even the company of himself, his brain is gone and missing and its commentary is as absent as could be.

Suddenly, Mani Mani is upon Ness, and he can feel the clouds opening up in the sky and there is a voice, a different voice this time, and he's sure it's Paula telling him, "Wake up, Ness, wake up wake up wake up! Hurry up before something terrible happens!"

Ness is airborne, floating straight up and towards that hole in the sky but he can catch a glimpse of the Mani Mani statue before he's gone and he recognizes something unusual; this is not Mani Mani. This statue has Paula's face.

And within a blinding instant, Ness is back, and he's in bed, shivering and sweating, and precisely three inches from the tip of his nose is a butcher's knife and one Paula Polestar sitting on top of him, also shivering and sweating, face grotesque and twisted. Instinctually, Ness screams and rolls to the side, throwing Paula to the ground on the left side of the bed and leaving himself on the floor to the right. He grabs his bat from its resting place in the corner and turns to find Paula, who's already picked herself up and has knife in hand, raised and at the ready.

This isn't Paula, Ness thinks.

This hasn't been Paula at all.

"You two-faced piece of trash, you've been working against me this whole time," Ness spits out, and he's literally spitting at Paula as he lifts his bat over and onto his shoulder, ready to swing. "Why, Paula? What's happened to you?" But Ness doesn't need an answer to that question, he's already got his theory falling together. Paula's skin is turning pale, and from pale it's blue-tinged, and Ness recognizes the tell-tale sign of Giygan influence instantly. 

It hasn't been Paula at all.

Paula Polestar lunges at Ness, jumping onto the bed and diving with arms outstretched across the room at the Chosen boy who desperately throws himself to the side and finds himself on the floor looking up at the knife again. Ness knows he would have the advantage in a straight-up fight, but this isn't straight-up; Ness is suffering from weeks of exhaustion, he knows, he hasn't sleep for weeks, he knows, but he's not about ready to give up. Ness Lanley clambers to his feet and lifts the bat over his shoulder again, holding it out and ready to swing.

"Paula, I'm not going to hurt you, I'm going to help you. You don't understand what you're doing," Ness tries his best to convince her but it's no good, it's only got her laughing. Paula is cackling and with a single gesture of her free hand there is a line of ethereal fire streaking across the floor at Ness. He deftly stomps on the small flame, dousing it, and makes a lunge of his own at Paula.

Ness is moving left-right, up-down, is utilizing the footwork that makes him a god on the battlefield, is weaving in and out of the range of Paula's weak stabs. The bat drops parallel to Ness and with a mighty heave and a step-through by Ness, comes full semi-circle to find Paula's shoulder and send her careening into the wall. The knife drops from her hand, clatters on the floor for a moment, and then all is silent. Nobody moves. Ness inspects the body on the floor in front of him, the poor girl lying crumpled at the base of the bed.

"Are you okay? Paula, are you okay?" Blood is slowly making its way from Paula to Ness who is sitting on his haunches a few feet away. Ness knows the wound isn't mortal, but he knows he hit her pretty hard. Cruel as it is, Ness only hopes it was hard enough.

"... what?" Paula whispers, inbetween sobs, over and over. "What? Ness, why am I bleeding? God, Ness, what happened, aghhh," her left arm is trashed, and her psyche with it. Ness slides closer, puts an arm around Paula's neck and helps her stand up, and together the two of them sit down on the bed, Ness gently cradling Paula.

"I don't get this," Ness begins. "I should have known? I would've known. You've had that knife for a while. I've been... sick for a while," Ness continues. Paula doesn't say anything at first, opting merely to lay her head on Ness's shoulder. "Paula, look," and he sees the fear in her eyes, and the confusion, and the unknowing, "I'm not going to ask you what's happened or what's going to happen. You've got enough on your mind, you always do. I just don't get it, I don't get why Giygas would drag this out for weeks on end. You've had that knife for a while."

"I love you, Ness, I always have and know I always will," Paula croaks out between gasps and sobs. Ness can feel the tenderness of her broken arm as he tightens his hug a little and kisses Paula on the forehead.

"We're just kids, Paula."

"Hah..." Paula chuckled a little, just a little, as her breathing became more choked and Ness knew she was going to need to visit the hospital A.S.A.P. "I guess young love isn't very easy for Giygas to fight through, either." He chuckles too, now.

"You're right, haha," Ness smiles and holds her ever-tighter, cotton candy turning to solid matter in his arms, "love might be what does Giygas in in the end. You never know."


End file.
